isc-ts-cc-cs-PowerShell-Update-UserModules

A simple PowerShell script to update a user's modules, and clean up old versions of the modules.

Update-UserModules.ps1 works on Windows, macOS and Linux. It only touches modules installed with Install-Module in the CurrentUser scope. Modules installed for all users are left alone.

What it does

1. Update: checks the repository (PSGallery by default) for a newer version of each user-scope module and installs it.
2. Clean up: keeps the newest version of each module plus a set number of older versions (default 1, so versions n and n-1), and uninstalls the rest.

Every action is written to a log file. By default the script prints nothing to the console.

Requirements

• Windows PowerShell 5.1, or PowerShell 7+ on Windows, macOS or Linux
• PowerShellGet (Get-InstalledModule, Find-Module, Update-Module, Uninstall-Module)

Parameters

Parameter	Default	Description
-LogPath	./Update-UserModules_<yyyyMMdd-HHmmss>.log	Log file path. If you give a folder, the default file name is created inside it.
-KeepVersions	1	Number of older versions to keep alongside the newest. 0 keeps only the newest.
-CleanupOnly	off	Skip the update step and only remove old versions.
-Name	*	Module name filter; wildcards allowed.
-Repository	PSGallery	Repository to check for updates.
-WhatIf	off	Log what would happen without changing anything.
-Verbose	off	Also show each log line on screen.
-Confirm	off	Prompt before each update or removal.

Examples

# Update everything, keep n and n-1, log to the current folder, no console output
./Update-UserModules.ps1

# Preview what would be updated and removed
./Update-UserModules.ps1 -WhatIf -Verbose

# Only remove old versions, keeping just the newest
./Update-UserModules.ps1 -CleanupOnly -KeepVersions 0

# Limit to specific modules and log to another folder
./Update-UserModules.ps1 -Name Microsoft.Graph*, ExchangeOnlineManagement -LogPath ~/Logs -Verbose

Log format

Syslog-style lines with an ISO 8601 timestamp:

2026-09-21T08:59:43-04:00 myhost Update-UserModules[2372]: notice: Removed FakeMod 1.2.0

Severity	Meaning
info	Progress and status
notice	A change was made (or would be, when the message starts with WhatIf:)
warning	Something was skipped, e.g. a module wasn't found in the repository
err	An update or removal failed

User module locations

Platform	Path
Windows (PowerShell 5.1)	<Documents>\WindowsPowerShell\Modules
Windows (PowerShell 7+)	<Documents>\PowerShell\Modules
macOS / Linux	$XDG_DATA_HOME/powershell/Modules (default ~/.local/share/powershell/Modules)

Exit codes

• 0: every action succeeded (or there was nothing to do)
• 1: at least one update or removal failed; see the log for details

Notes

• A module version that's loaded in any open PowerShell session may fail to uninstall. Run from a fresh session (pwsh -NoProfile) for best results.
• On macOS/Linux, don't run the script with sudo. That switches $HOME to root's, so root's modules would be cleaned up instead of yours.